‘Good morning all,’ Odette came into the kitchen, yawning. ‘Any coffee left?’
‘I think you first owe your father an apology,’ said Therèse.
‘Apology? He slapped—’
‘Keep your voice down. There’s no need to wake your grandfather; he’s worried enough about all this as it is.’
Odette poured herself coffee and sat down. ‘He’s not here. I heard him go out hours ago.’
‘You let him go out?’ Therèse ran to Marius’ bedroom, closely followed by Louis. Without knocking she opened his door. It was empty, the bed unmade, his pyjamas uncharacteristically thrown to the floor. On his bedside table, his radio detailed the bombing that was taking place.
‘Where would he have gone?’ Therèse asked.
‘Probably to find Gwafa. To make sure he’s all right.’
‘No, surely not!’
‘He’s his closest friend.’
‘But the village’s kilometres away. With what’s happening out there…’
‘He’ll find a way; he’s a determined old man. You’d better ring anyone who might see him. Riccardi at the police station – they know him – ask them to look around town. I’ll go with Imez. Who knows how far he’ll be by now.’
#
It was the smoke they saw first. It rose slowly in twisting columns, staining the clouds above. A line of well-defined bomb craters lead to the village. The air was heavy, acrid, thick with the stench of smoke, burnt wood and burning flesh. No bird could be seen, no animal, except for those killed in the bombing. Neither men spoke. Louis was reminded of Verdun, so many years ago.
They saw the first body on the outskirts of the village. It was a man, barely recognisable, charred flesh naked except for the small piece of cloth under him that had not burnt when he fell. Behind him, the village no longer existed – it had been razed flat. Louis stopped the car and glanced at Imez. He was staring straight ahead, his face expressionless, as if carved from granite. As they left the car, fragments of scorched cloth and paper fluttered in the air currents. A leg, the foot still in a brown sandal, lay in their path. Black swollen faces stared lifelessly at them as they passed. Fragments of household goods – a broken bowl, the leg of a chair. By the remains of a wall, Louis saw what at first looked like a deformed body, but as he got closer he realised it was a woman clutching her child, their burnt bodies fused together by the heat of the blast. Stones that were once walls still radiated heat. Imez ran amongst the rubble, looking for Gwafa. He went from body to body, turning over those lying face down. Limbless bodies. Faceless bodies. Bellies already swollen. Raw flesh with skin stripped off or burnt black. Bodies lying in pools of blood. Intestines spilling onto parched earth. The buzz of flies. The stench of burn flesh. In this crematorium of hate Louis followed, hindered by his limp. He heard Imez cry out and for just an instant he hesitated, already knowing what he’d found.
They were crouched together in a corner of what had been Gwafa’s house, a ruined corner of stone that flashed Louis’ mind back to a boy and a man sheltering from a dust storm. Marius’ skull was crushed, his hair singed. Dried blood mingled with brain matter. Shards of bone. An oily black sediments covered his face. Gwafa had an arm around Marius, comforting his friend even in death. Skin from his face and chest hung down like burnt rags. Beneath him, a leg jutted out at an impossible angle. Louis’ mind denied what he was seeing, groped for an instant of sanity, surrendered to fury. His legs gave way beneath him and he sank to the ground, his cane clattering beside him. He saw Imez remove the cygnet ring from Gwafa’s scorched finger and put it on his own. Bile burned his throat and tears streaked the soot on his face.
‘You must leave,’ Imez said, his voice cold. ‘My people will be here soon to bury their dead. They’ll kill you.’
‘My father. I must take him home.’
‘I’ll help you carry him. But you must go. Now.’ He removed Gwafa’s arm from Marius’ shoulder. Louis felt useless. He rose. He wanted to say something to Imez, but felt he had reached the end of his endurance, and no words could express his anger and despair. Both had lost a father, yet their wretchedness enveloped each of them like an impenetrable wall. Imez lifted Marius into his arms.
‘I’ll carry him. Give him to me.’
But Imez ignored him.
Back at the car, he laid Marius on the back seat, as if settling a toddler in bed for the night. He slammed the car door shut and turned to Louis. ‘Go,’ he said quietly. ‘Go now. We’ve been like brothers, you and I, all of our lives. And it’s because of that, of that bond, and the friendship of our fathers, that I say this to you now. From this moment on, the French are my enemy – all of the French. I will do whatever is necessary to bring freedom to my people. And if that means killing every French man, woman, and yes, even every child that crosses my path, then so be it. But I will do one thing to honour our friendship. I give you my word that while I live, no harm will come to you or your family. Don’t ask any more than that of me.’
#
The attacks and bombardments continued. More than forty villages were bombed, but the French newspapers reported figures of fewer than two thousand dead, playing down the bloodbath. After Marius’ funeral, Louis became obsessed with scouring official records – it had become important to him to know the real figures. He realised the newspapers were printing what the French government wanted the people to think, that the figures were many times the amount being reported, and his hate for the deception of the government and the press grew each day. Soon self-appointed vigilante groups began scouring the countryside, breaking into small town jails and lynching their Muslim prisoners. That too was played down. On the twenty-second of May, two weeks after V-E Day, the Muslim tribes officially surrendered. The French rejoiced, confident that the police and the army had succeeded in quelling the rebellion. They did not realise that Algeria had become infected by a pestilence whose bacillus would not die, but would simply lie dormant for the next nine years, patiently waiting.
20
It was late on the 24th of December. Nicolette sat on the floor in the corridor, hugging her knees, her back against Steven’s door. In her hand was an unopened bottle of scotch. In a room further along the corridor, Madame Lesage snored. Nicolette shivered. She heard Steven’s key in the front door.
‘Nicky? What are you doing here in the dark?’
‘Waiting for you.’
‘Okay…’ He unlocked his door and turned on the bedside light. Nicolette stood and followed him in. ‘So what’s up?’
‘Not much. Here, happy Christmas.’ She gave him the scotch, then shrugged and sat on the edge of his bed. She felt restless, irritable. She didn’t want to be in her room alone.
‘Thanks. But let’s finish this one off first.’ He reached under his bed and pulled out another bottle, this one half empty. ‘Want one?’ Nicolette shook her head. ‘So what’ve you been doing?’
‘Tried to ring my mother to say merry Christmas, but couldn’t get through. Wrote a couple of letters instead.’ She took a deep breath. Hesitated. ‘Steven, can I stay here tonight?’
Steven stopped pouring. He put the bottle and the glass back down on the bedside table. ‘Ermm, okay… But you’re sure about this, Nicky? I didn’t think you—’
Nicolette nodded, then realised what he was thinking. ‘Hang on, I’m not asking you to have sex.’ In the mood she was in, sex was the last thing she wanted. ‘I mean stay stay. Here. In this room.’
‘Oh. Of course. That’s what I thought you meant. But tell me why?’
Nicolette shrugged. ‘I dunno… this place is getting to me. Nothing’s like I thought it would be. The waiting around’s getting to me as well.’ She felt close to tears and hated herself for it. Why did she feel so fragile, all of a sudden? ‘I just wish Boumedienne would hurry up and die so we can all get out of here. It’s Christmas Eve, for crying out loud. Only you wouldn’t know it. I don’t know… I just don’t want to be on my own tonight, that’s all.’
<
br /> ‘Yup, you’ve got a dose of the doldrums. Happens sometimes. Okay, kiddo, you can stay. But if you’re going to do that, you’re going to join me in a drink.’ He poured a second glass. ‘Here, get that down you. It’ll warm you up. Make you feel better.’
#
They were sitting stretched out on Steven’s bed, covered by the quilt, their backs against the bedhead. The first bottle of scotch laid empty on the floor, the second, now three quarters full, stood on the bedside table. Steven reached across for it and refilled his glass. ‘Top up?’
Nicolette knew she was getting drunk, but tonight, she just didn’t care. She nodded and held out her glass. Her head was spinning – not from the alcohol, but from what she’d learnt from Steven. Or maybe from all the cigarettes she’d pinched from him.
When she’d mentioned how her conversation with Jamilah had highlighted her ignorance of much of what had happened during Algeria’s war of independence, he’d given her a quick, journalistic rundown.
‘Anyway,’ he said, coming to the end of his history lesson, ‘many hardline settlers thought de Gaulle had betrayed them by agreeing to independence. So they formed the OAS – the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète, or Secret Army. If you thought the torture and the killing was bad before then, it was nothing compared to what happened once the OAS got going. By the summer of ‘62, you had indiscriminate killing sprees. Indiscriminate torture. Not just of the Algerians, but of the French as well. Civilians, military or police, it didn’t matter – anyone who wanted compromise, anyone who agreed to independence, even those who tried to leave the country. They bombed the University of Algiers library, set the oil refineries on fire. Every day, total mindboggling atrocities everywhere. From all sides. There was more than an ounce of truth in the saying “la valise ou le cercueil” – the suitcase or the coffin…’
‘But some stayed – Lesage… How come nothing happened to her?’
‘Dunno. Sometimes, it’s better not to ask. But of course, in the end, it didn’t do any good.’
‘Algeria still got its independence.’
‘Independence, yes. But peace? Sometimes I don’t think it’ll ever truly have peace. The French may have left, but Algeria’s still oppressed. Independence isn’t the same as freedom from oppression, you know.’
‘It’s all so confusing…’
‘What is?’
‘All these different versions – yours, Jemilah’s, Grandpa Louis’. Even my mother’s version’s different again. They all clash; I don’t know who to believe anymore. I don’t even know if I should believe myself. It feels like everyone’s been lying to me. Me to myself worst of all.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘The things I’m remembering since I’ve been here – are they real? Because if they are, why didn’t I remember them before coming here. Why is my old version of Algeria so different from the version I’m remembering now?’
‘I’m no psychologist, kiddo, but maybe when you got to Australia, you just wanted to forget everything you saw here. You were what? Nine? Ten? So you’d have had a good six years of it. You didn’t exactly have a normal life here, you know. Going from a war zone to a normal place, a peaceful place, and building a normal life, that’s not an easy thing to do – some people never manage that. And I reckon that grandfather of yours probably played a big part in helping you forget. Think about it. What’s he going to do? Tell this kid who’s seen too much more horror stories? Or tell her stories about how he wished Algeria still was? From what you told me, he sounds like he was an idealist. Right from the beginning of his time here, he was a friend of the Berbers. Between this Imez and the old guy – what was his name?’
‘Merzoug?’
‘That’s the one. Between them, they taught him all about this place – their Algeria, which was very different from the French Algeria. And he stayed friends with this Imez until the end. So of course he’s going to have a very different view of them, than those French who only saw them as cheap labour.’
‘Like my mother, you mean.’
‘Probably. The point is, everyone has a different version of Algeria. You’re grandfather’s different to Jamilah’s because what they lived through is different.’
‘I guess so.’
‘I know so. But now that you’re here, something – I don’t know, a sound, a smell, something – will trigger one of those old memories, whether you want it to or not. But don’t let it get to you.’ He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. ‘You can always come and find me if those memories give you the heebie-jeebies, ok?’
Nicolette nodded and yawned. Looked at her watch – three a.m. She really should go back to her room and get some sleep. But she was so comfortable here, and it was kind of nice not being on her own, nice having someone offer to look after her, should she ever get the ‘heebie-jeebies’. She’d been right to turn to him tonight. He might act like a tough bastard when he was around others, but she’d sensed a softer side to him, under all that brashness. She liked this thoughtful, caring side. Liked the way he spoke to her.
‘Steven?’
‘Hmm?’
‘D’you think Jemilah’s people will ever be free?’
‘Dunno, Nicky. Oppression’s a funny thing. People always see the oppressors as bastards – and I guess most of them are, if you look at it from the point of view of them grabbing land, or minerals or whatever, and all the violence that goes with it; although some of them genuinely thought they were doing good – think of the missionaries – even if their idea of good wasn’t what the oppressed wanted. They make it into some sort of noble crusade…
‘But from what I’ve seen, it’s almost as if there’s a kind of agreement between them – the oppressed and the oppressors. I know it sounds weird, but think about it – the one being oppressed has to agree to be oppressed. I don’t mean consciously, of course, and I realise if he said no, he’d probably be killed – hell, he probably realises that himself. But I reckon they see they don’t have much choice, so they figure there might some benefit from going along with things – at first anyway. Maybe they think that by being “good”, they’ll earn their freedom. Or their family or their village will be safe. Or maybe they want to learn what the oppressors know, hell, I don’t know…
‘But I reckon after a while, they realise what they thought would happen isn’t working out the way they’d hope. By then, of course, they’ve learnt a lot already, so they start use that against the oppressors to get what they want. And the oppressors realise they’re no longer quite so powerful. So that’s when trouble really starts. When the oppressed do get their freedom – their independence – by then it’s too late, because they’ve already changed too much themselves. Become too much like those that were oppressing them in the first place.’
Steven put his glass back on the table and stood up. ‘Back in a minute.’
She heard him walk down the corridor, heard a door shut. She snuggled down further under the quilt. Closed her eyes and tried to think about all Steven had told her, but it was too much for her to think about just yet. She heard a toilet flush and Steven hurried back into the room and under the quilt.
‘Freezing out there! But to get back to what we were talking about – you see, there’s a problem with colonialism that most people don’t think about much – and that’s memory. Because memory’s a strong, powerful thing, and even though logic tells you it can’t happen, I reckon memory’s passed on from generation to generation. So by the time independence is won, there are only two types of people – those that are dead, and those that are left with a memory of an independence brought about by violence. That’s what I hate about it – that when all the cease-fires have been put into effect, when the peace treaties have been signed and the silence they call peace has blanketed the country, what you’re left with isn’t independence. What you’re left with is a memory of violence. Killings and rapes and torture. Shattered dreams and loss of innocence. And that can only lead to just mo
re violence. Does that make sense?’
But Nicolette didn’t say whether it made sense or not – she’d already fallen asleep.
#
She half-woke from a dream in which she’d been making love to a dark stranger, to feel Steven’s hand caressing her breast. It felt like a continuation of her dream. It was still dark, the bedside light was off, and she realised she was now between the sheets, wearing her jumper and underpants, but not her jeans – when had she taken them off? They lay cupped spoon-fashion, one of Steven’s naked legs thrown over hers, his erect penis against her buttocks. Something – an old sensation, a new hunger – awakened within her. God, how long had it been since she’d had sex? She pretended to still be asleep. He rolled her nipple between a finger and thumb and a shiver passed from her breast through her belly to her sex. Every nerve was aroused but still she lay as if asleep. Her whole body cried out for him to enter her, but still she hesitated.
Since Michael’s death she’d lived like a nun, denying herself any sexual thought, crushing the slightest arousal. But right now, tonight, she felt both restless and sensual. Aroused. And she wanted Steven. She wanted to feel like a woman again, a woman that men wanted, a woman who could abandon herself to passion. But did she really want to start a relationship with Steven? She felt a confusion of emotions – fear, arousal, doubt and desire. His hand caressed her leg, her hip, heightened every sense and she felt an intense yearning just to be filled. She moved slightly – ever so slightly – and Steven’s hand moved to her belly, then slid under the elastic of her underpants. She raised her hips to help him remove them. Then, with a groan of frustration, she reached behind herself and guided his penis inside her.
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